Friday, August 13, 2010

Beltran Swings and Connects.

It was nice to see some positives come out of the day/camp /pitching clinic that went on at Citi Field yesterday. Of course there was Santana that has seem to have slowed his changeup more to help establish a 10mph+ difference in speed with his fastball and he went on to strike out 10. Good job. If Warthen helped him with that maybe he can now crossover to help Wright find a batting stance that is in the same zip as the plate. Ok that’s for another time.

What else you can take out of yesterday was the play and character of Carlos Beltran. Not only did he hit well, catch well and run well he actually was man enough to comment about his true feelings in the K Rod incident. Beltran always get knocked for not being a leader and keeping to himself. Not everyone can mix it up well and I don’t fault him for that. What was great to see was him to step up and say hey everyone has family issues but to do what K Rod did in front of everyone was wrong. He went on to say that “we stand behind him since he is our closer but he doesn’t agree with what went on.” Yes ! Someone who can stand up and be counted. Finally a quote from someone who is not trying to say the politically correct thing. Take some notes young Jedi Wright.

Beltran besides having an opinion and actually expressing it yesterday did have some breakthroughs on the field. He started playing shallow again with the nudging of coach Razor Shines. That is why when he broke to his right on a ball that was hit to fairly deep left center he looked like the Beltran of old. Catching up to it as the fly ball was heading to the alley. Plus he was able to put together 3 hits and a sacrifice fly at the plate and ran first to third on a hit by Josh Thole.

Beltran still says that he is still not comfortable at the plate but at least he is comfortable in his own skin.